Google has scanned thousands of out of print books that can be viewed and searched. I was looking through them last night and found some interesting ones.

That old "Art of Engraving" book that was printed before the Meeks book. (printing date 1904) is on-line. My great grandfather (My father's, mother's father) was a watchmaker/engraver and I attained a hand-me-down copy along with some other interesting books. He had written inside the front cover "Weaver Watch Co., Jewelers & Optometrist, Harvard, Nebraska, Kodaks & Supplies". This one is the 3rd edition. Google has both the 2nd and 3rd edition. The only difference I can tell is the 3rd edition has six more pages.

have not yet tried to do the inside ring work, but am set up for it.. .... am happy to see this text covers that and other chores, and not too surprised to see that the author believed my fixture to be of little use.... We shall see. Also what do you think about the complete guide to the fine arts?..... what a great little read, it appears I am guilty of cutting steel with what was at least originally designed to cut wood. Tint ... really cool book.

Dover's got a huge collection of paperbacks that are collections of old pencil drawings showing all sorts of ornament. I think that many of them were copied from wood carvings as well as old engravings in wood and metal. My favorite is "Florid Victorian Ornament" by Karl Klimsch. here's a link to that specific title:http://store.doverpublications.com/0486234908.html
If you type in "ornament" in Dover's search window you'll get a huge selection of different types of historical ornamentation. Don't stop there though, they've got some good, inexpensive reference books in their art section on anatomy. Just a great pictorial resource.

Hi Andrew, I don't know. They are working for me. Anyone else having problems seeing the book pages from the links? It might be that we need to have an acrobat pdf plug-in installed in our browser to view these. I don't know..??

I have a sneaking suspicion that the vast majority of the titles under Google Books can't be viewed from non-US IP addresses. They themselves say they are "conservative" in their interpretation of copyright laws around the world.

One nice feature on Google Books is being able to download the and store the pdf's yourself. If PS_Bond is correct about the non-US browsers, then perhaps getting a US friend to dl and send you the pdf's would be an effective work-around. Mind you, its up to you and your friend to find out the applicable laws pertaining to this transaction Just a thought.

As Steve has somewhat shown, when searching for Engraving books, try looking for other semi-related topics. You would be surprised what and where you can find great sources of information.

Another area to search is your local public library network, generally you need an account, but those are easily attained. In my home state, PA, the public network is so massive, I haven't even begun to scratch the surface. I can tell you though, theres a section that has nearly every periodical/magazine from the past 30 years I could think of. Including woodworking and metalworking titles. And all this accessible at home and printable.

To all of you who can't see books from Google because they're not in US. There's a nice workaround - use a proxy server.

I used this one and it worked great:http://www.unblockwebsense.com/
Be sure to select "remove cookies", because cookies might save some info from your previous browsing sessions.

List of other available proxies:http://proxy.org/cgi_proxies.shtml. I believe the green ones are those which can be used directly from browser (you just go to that URL and enter the URL which you want to see via that proxy), others need to be set in you browser preferences.

Edit: Nope, they all seem to be web-based proxies, so choose whichever you want.

I did try to place a link here, but i have a NON-US IP adress it wont work i have a link thru a proxy.org to see the full view that works for me but i can't copy this, non us-ip adresses must search with a proxy (see post from Vilts) US IP adresses search the above title in googlebooks.

Steve,
I have to share a funny with you, I picked up a copy of the Art of Engraving on Ebay thinking it was you or a family member had written it, cause it had Lindsay Publications Inc. on it. It is the Second Edition Paperback. If you ever have the need for a hard-copy give me a shout and I'll share. Consequently I hope to make an order for airgraver in a month or so. Hopefully you will have your sharpener by then. Thanks for such an Awesome forum.

I did try to place a link here, but i have a NON-US IP adress it wont work i have a link thru a proxy.org to see the full view that works for me but i can't copy this, non us-ip adresses must search with a proxy (see post from Vilts) US IP adresses search the above title in googlebooks.

Steve,
I have to share a funny with you, I picked up a copy of the Art of Engraving on Ebay thinking it was you or a family member had written it, cause it had Lindsay Publications Inc. on it. It is the Second Edition Paperback. If you ever have the need for a hard-copy give me a shout and I'll share. Consequently I hope to make an order for airgraver in a month or so. Hopefully you will have your sharpener by then. Thanks for such an Awesome forum.

Okay.. Try downloading the Acanthus drawing book from here.
It is a 7 meg file. You can left click on it and it will load in acrobat reader, but it will load very slow because of the size of the file. It may be better to right click on the link and select "save link as" to save the file to your hard disk. After it finishes downloading, find the file on your harddisk and double click it to have it open in acrobat reader.

I tried downloading the file again and just as before, when I try to open it I encounter an error? I have Acrobat Reader 4.0 which works fine with several other documents I have as well as other PDF files on the internet?

Is anyone else experiencing this issue? The error implies there is information not understood by the reader.

That's a real treasure you've found there Elise, thanks for sharing with us. Thanks very much for the book download as well Steve. That ones well worth taking to the copy guy and getting photocopied and bound.

A great little book to have in the collection. It's funny reading the text in those old books. I wonder if people actually spoke like that?

Hello all. My name is Bob Keyes. I have spent 40 years of my life as an engineer specializing in robotic machine design and fabrication. I have dealt with metal fabrication in all aspects except engraving. Now that I am retired I am going to try to gain some knowledge on that subject. Looks like this is the place to learn.

I live in southern Kentucky and cast precious metals, make pens, and other metal objects. This is exciting to me. Right now I'm just trying to learn to sharpen a graver. Maybe I'll master that soon.

Hello all. My name is Bob Keyes. I have spent 40 years of my life as an engineer specializing in robotic machine design and fabrication. I have dealt with metal fabrication in all aspects except engraving. Now that I am retired I am going to try to gain some knowledge on that subject. Looks like this is the place to learn.

I live in southern Kentucky and cast precious metals, make pens, and other metal objects. This is exciting to me. Right now I'm just trying to learn to sharpen a graver. Maybe I'll master that soon.

Thanks to all who keep this forum alive and well.

Hi Bob You will find lots good people with a fun engraving addiction helping each other here on the forum.

Hi, Mr. Steve I am lerning to use my airgraver and i´m making some names on lighters and jewelry for some costumers and they are happy that I grave their names with precision on their items, but I need some info for make better designs, thank you for the links, I´ll check it out

Hi, glad I found this site. Seems to have access to loads of information and guys with loads of experience. Some of the workmanship is mind blowing. I have a question "is the Lindsey air engraver worth getting by an absolute beginner"? Can I buy it direct in the UK or do I have to buy from the USA. What do I need to get started?

I'm new to the forum and this is my first post. My wife is a website designer/developer and she gave me some incite to this problem. This problem is two fold. 1. Google has a list of all of the webhosting server IP's that run tunnelers,IP hiders and proxy's and they block them. Thanks for the links Vilts that will help most of the users here, but not all of us. 2. These links only help if you are in an "Google approved country". That being said, it is a pain in the butt for those of us that are not. Steve L. thanks for the server link for the (drawing the acanthus book) I know what a pain it is to upload to the server and not have it get corrupted or have the site go completely haywire. I used the link with no problems. My suggestion is this. Those members that have it downloaded be willing to e-mail them to those that cant get it. I have family in the states that cant figure it out to send to me. The other option is to plead with Steve L. to upload the others to the server, I for one will be forever in your debt if you do, as I am sure the rest will. I am a security consultant working in Costa Rica, I have a San Jose IP address and get blocked all of the time on Google .com. Also we have customs people who cant tell a submarine propeller from a ball vise. I have had $3000 in tools get confiscated at customs thus far. I will be here on contract for 14 months more and will be going back to the NW in BC. Then I can re order tools and get started. For now I'm just trying to get proficient at designing a good looking scroll and leaf, so all these books are worth their weight in gold to me.

Also new to the forum and very new to engraving. I am a gunsmith and build (specialize) in recreating historic firearms - which need to be engraved and which I know nothing about. So, I say to myself: How difficult can it be? Guess I found out. I now have commissions for building American long rifles for clients in the US and patch boxes need engraving. (I'm ok with wood carving.)

I've also tried to download these books from Google but have had no success. Is there perhaps a member of this forum who is willing to download, burn to a DVD and post this to those members who are prevented from down loading. Obviously, costs will be reimbursed.

I think google has the scanned books set up so that only USA internet connections (ip addresses) can see them. I remember earlier in this thread that someone had this figured out of why some could see them and others couldn't. I just tried a few of the links in the first post of this thread and they are still working for me.

PS.. Daniel, I just saw your post above. Thanks for replying to Steve B. I missed that post and some of the others since then.

You can view these books if you're outside of the states. How you do this is to view google books through a proxy server. This server fools google to think you're from the states.

To find one reliable proxy has so far been hopeless to me. However, by trying random proxy's at http://proxy.org/ you will get lucky 1 out of 5 or so. Its annoying having to do this, but I usually just download the PDF right away so I wont have to use it too often.